Customer Reviews

Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals

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It's funny how we often draw the wrong conclusions about people of the past, by looking at evidence of their physical lives. Shaker furniture and room design often convey ascetic austerity, and repressed emotions. And then... there is the music! Here one realizes that Shakers were deeply spiritual people and found great joy in their music and dance. The Boston Camerata really succeeds in recreating the atmosphere of a Shaker meeting hall, with music that captures the power of communal gatherings. There are reflective melodies here, but also energetic "hand-clapping, foot stomping" chants. The result is that, in listening to this CD, you are likely to "see" the Shakers in a new light. If you like early American historical music, or just appreciate the power of shared hymns, you will truly appreciate this wonderful performance.

This album is sung by professional singers with some Shaker community participation. This contrasts with the folk recordings of Shakers alone - or of music groups retaining the Shaker tradition. Just as the Boston Camarata recordings of Billings, Dear etc. helped revive an interest in early American music of what became the shaped note tradition, so this album should revive interest in the American Shaker tradition.

The music is folksy - simple and direct - and by its style directly reflects the Shaker philosophy of life. The pieces are short - a disadvantage for those tunes you love. Simple Gifts is the best known work - but you are apt to find other pieces you like as much. Come Life, Shaker Life is one of my favorites.

This album is a must for anyone interested in Shakers, early American music, or American folk music. It will whet your appetite for the albums put out by Shaker musuems - but the professional performance is a better starting point for most people.

Simple Gifts from Copland's Appalachian Spring is my favorites. I bought this CD since I wanted to listen to the original Simple Gifts, Shaker Hymn. Wow, I love this Simple Gifts, too! Powerful and simple a cappella chorus. I never thought original has lyrics. I love the lyrics. Other songs are also beautiful.

The CD comes with thick program notes of 63 pages, which outlined short history of the Shakers and lyrics of whole 34 songs in English, French and German.

This is a wonderful recording. From the time that I purchased it, it quickly became a favourite of mine.

This music is rather simple, yet it has tremendous beauty. From the wordless songs to the famous "Simple Gifts", it is a recording to be treasured.

For those with an interest in early American music, I recommend this recording highly.

My interest in seeking Shaker music was professional - I wanted something to use for my church choir's next big performance. What I found in this collection of Shaker music was that, but much more.

Without their music, the Shakers can seem quaint and faintly silly - the odd maiden aunts and uncles with peculiar hobbies (making chairs and living without modern conveniences) and -- nutty bears, indeed! -- living in celibate, and therefore non-regenerative communities.

But their music is something else --earnest, longing, full of commitment and a sense of their own story. And tuneful! You don't have to be a Shaker to appreciate the visual poetry of "Virgins cloth'd in a clean white garment," or hear the deep commitment to resist sin in "I will fight, fight, and never slack until I overcome the enemy," or the desperate longing for eternal life evoked by "In yonder valley there flows sweet union." These are songs written for and performed by people who lived a most austere form of spirituality.

There are those who criticize Joel Cohen for having embellished some pieces by adding, for instance, a drone that is not attested in the literature. By I certainly praise Cohen and the Boston Camarata for having brought these wonderful pieces to my attention. It is icing on the cake that a few of the remaining Shakers of the Sabbathday Lake, Maine community chose to join their voices to this effort. To sing is to pray twice, and this CD certainly delivers on that promise, plus providing insights into an obscure but enduring corner of the American religious landscape.

Only four Shakers remain and Sabbathday Lake in Maine houses them all. They range in age from 43 to 80. Given this, without fresh converts the Shakers face extinction. Barred by law from adopting orphans (since 1960, religious groups cannot adopt, only individuals or couples can), the twentieth century saw a steep decline in their numbers. Thanks to religious revivals, back in the nineteenth century their numbers swelled to over 5,000. But by 1920 a mere dozen remained. Though the small community hopes, and continually prays, for new recruits - which must come in the form of consenting adults - their values clash with modern America. Which was, of course, the original point. The largest hurdle for membership: total celibacy. No procreation, nothing. And, as we all know, twenty-first century American culture is anything but celibate.

Shakers remain not only celibate, but ascetic. Though not to the level of the Amish or the Luddites. Sabbathday Lake has a website, a car, telephones, and internet connections. They also don't hermit themselves from society. They play an active role in it. So throw away any notions of Puritanical witch hunters. Shakers laugh, socialize, read, dance, and, as this CD aptly demonstrates, they sing their ascetic hearts out.

The music, largely resembling English folk music, rhapsodizes about Shaker values, history, and vows. All songs but one get performed a capella. Some emphasize the lyrics with stomping and clapping. Permeating the set is the figure of "Mother," or Ann Lee. She helped found the Shakers in the eighteenth century and all faithful remain her spiritual heir (after Jesus Christ, of course). Early followers faced persecution, but found faith in Mother's actions and example. The song, titled appropriately, "Mother" retells the story of the "blessed fire" that spread from Manchester, England to America. Believers also reaffirm their faith and actions by singing songs in Meeting. An apt beginning, the CDs first song presents an ecstatic chant that reminds members of their ominous vow: "Come life, Shaker life, Come life eternal, Shake, shake out of me all that is carnal." "Followers of the Lamb" repeats the lines "I'm glad I am a Shaker" three times in celebration. Some songs don't have words and get half hummed half sung with mystical sounds. Shakers also express anger. "A companion stiff" fiercely pounds away individualistic thoughts in favor of community. The beautiful and upbeat "Encouragement" combines non-word singing with strongly contrasting fervent stomping and clapping. Somehow it encapsulates both meditative contemplation and heart-racing ecstasy in only two and a half minutes. Aptly bookending the CD is the most famous Shaker song, "Simple gifts." Instantly recognizable, Aaron Copland popularized this tune in his 1950 ballet "Appalachian Spring." Here it receives a sparse but inspired choral performance. As such, it aptly closes the CD with a message of faith and simplicity.

This CD, recorded at Sabbathday Lake, preserves a sampling of the thousands of Shaker songs known to exist. To this day these songs still fill the Shaker's 1794 Meeting House, the last one still in use. But how much longer? In the end, whether or not the Shakers can survive their current troubles, they will always remain an important piece of American and religious history. Not that that provides much consolation. Either way, this recording helps to preserve an important aspect of the Shaker's cultural contribution: their impressive music.

I am a big fan of early American music, and Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata really know how to do it. I found this album musically refreshing as well as spiritually refreshing. As a minister of music, I appreciate the sensitivity the Camerata brings to its interpretation of these traditional Shaker hymns. I also love hearing music by singers (specifially the Shakers themselves) who are not afraid to limit their understanding of who God is -- infinite and varied in nature, not subject to human limitations such as gender. There is a great freedom in this music which some listeners who are tired of the rigid confines of modern theology will appreciate. My only ambivalence is with the pieces on which the Shaker community takes a leading role. On the one hand, I think this is brilliant and enriching. On a purely auditory level, though, their untrained sound is a little distracting. Decide for yourself when you purchase this delightful album!

I read the reviews of this CD and feel some people are not understanding the lyrics. One cautioned that Shakers refer to God as "she." At first, I thought the same thing; however, after carefully listening to the music many times, I truly believe that when they refer to "she", they are solely referring to Mother Ann, the founder of their religion, whom they obviously adored and admired. This music is haunting and well-performed and should NOT be a "turn-off" to any Christian who chooses to listen.

This is a gorgeous album of melodies so strong and simple that you could build bridges on them.
The issue of the theology is irrelevent unless you believe that differences in the theology expressed--which may be different from yours--will interfere with your pleasure in the music. I can easily imagine topics that, no matter how beautifully expressed, I would be unable to listen to. It wasn't the case with this CD.

(You would also be upset if you believe that (a) listening to others express their beliefs, which are different form yours, is a sin, (b) your faith will be swayed by listening to gorgeous music from people who disagree with you, or (c) it's wrong for people with different beliefs to have their music recorded. I doubt very much that any of the people who have expressed theological concerns about this CD would feel that way but, hey, people who do feel that way should be given appropriate warning).